


they

by 101places



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Academy, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, season 6 spec
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2019-08-22 04:11:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16590605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/101places/pseuds/101places
Summary: A collection of short ficlets about FitzSimmons.





	1. first impressions [academy ; simmons pov]

**Author's Note:**

> sssooo im half asleep & wanted to write a thing so have this i guess? im just making this as a place to throw all of my drabbley / short things under 1k words. therell be a variety of themes/genres/whatever!
> 
> if you'd be interested in seeing anything expanded / have any requests feel free to drop em in the comments & ill see what i can do!

She’d been interested in him when she first heard about him.

Well, of course she had. He was the only person here in a similar boat to her- a so-called child prodigy. A genius amongst geniuses. Of course she’d be  _ interested _ .

All her life, Jemma Simmons had been painfully obviously different to those around her, and the thought that there could be someone here who might understand what that felt like was oddly thrilling. So, naturally, the moment she had learnt his name, she’d done a bit of  _ research _ . And by research, she means she typed his name into Google.

The information that the search engine provided only proved to make her more interested, and she decided to make it her one of unofficial goals to talk to Fitz, right alongside being the youngest student to ever graduate from the SHIELD academy.

* * *

As time passed, Simmons found that talking to Fitz was a lot more difficult than she’d originally anticipated.

It wasn’t for a want of trying- she’d done everything she could think of to get into his good graces. She’d tried small talk while waiting for a lecture to begin, she’d tried claiming the seat beside him at lunchtime- she’d even feigned being lost once to have an excuse to ask him for directions, but every single time he just looked back at her with what she could only describe as a cold expression.

She’d repeated her trial and come to the same conclusion each time, so she was forced to accept that her hypothesis was likely correct: Leopold Fitz hated her.

To some extent, she could understand it. It was, unfortunately, common for intelligent people to look down on others. She’d just hoped that he wouldn’t be like that- or, even if he  _ was _ , that he’d be able to see her on his level.

But after so long of trying, maybe she’d have to start accepting that it just wasn’t going to happen.

* * *

She’d been right not to give up, it seemed, because a miracle had happened.

_ Well _ , not actually a  _ miracle _ . She didn’t believe in things like that, and for good reason- but that was off topic. The point was, due to some pretty extraordinary luck, they’d been paired together for a project.

( Well, even  _ luck _ was pushing it. There was a rather obvious reason why they’d been paired together. They were the kid geniuses. Even though they’d never had a conversation before today, people had already displayed a tendency to pair them together in their minds. )

At first, it had been about as awkward as she had expected. Despite her best efforts, Fitz still barely said two words to her. Then, finally, he  _ spoke _ .

And she realised that her initial assessment of him had been incorrect.

He wasn’t just a child prodigy, or a genius- he was something  _ more  _ than that, somehow.

She decided that she didn’t just want to settle for talking to him. Even if it killed her, Jemma Simmons was  _ definitely _ going to become his friend.


	2. "I hate you."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "I hate you."

“I hate you.”

Fitz spoke cooly, his voice showing no emotion. To his side, he heard a horrified gasp. He didn’t even bother to look.

A few tense moments passed, and no one in the room made any moves. Then…

“Oh, bloody hell. Okay. I can’t do it. I’m sorry, that was over-dramatic.”

The emotion came flooding back into his face and voice, and he moved towards Simmons, trying to drop his head onto her shoulder to show that he really,  _ really _ hadn’t meant it.

Simmons shifted away from him, angling her whole body so she was out of his reach, and fixed him with a firm glare. “Do you really think an apology can cut it?”

Fitz met her gaze, eyes wide and filled with regret. She didn’t look away or soften her steely resolve.

A few feet away, Daisy spoke up with a quiet voice. “...Go fish?”

Simmons broke eye contact, looking over to Daisy with a cheery smile, “Right, my turn.”

Daisy let out a quiet breath, shaking her head good-naturedly. “You guys  _ really _ take games seriously, huh.”


	3. interior decorating [domestic]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just found this while cleaning out my folders. i dont have a clue what i was thinking when i wrote it but Yknow fsdhshdf sometimes it be like that!! (also its name in my folders was just 'hell' so i have NO clue what i initially intended it to be)

Simmons knew exactly what she was doing.

She was a genius. She had two PhD’s before she was seventeen. She was the world’s best researcher specialising in Inhumans. She was the Special Advisor to the Director in Science and Technology. She could do this.

She could hang a TV up on the wall. It wouldn’t be any harder than the re-painting she’d been doing earlier.

That’s what she’d told herself three hours ago. Now, however, as the floor-space was totally covered in different nails, hammers and instructions, she wondered if maybe, just maybe, she’d been defeated.

But no. She couldn’t give up. There was a very important reason why she was doing this- that reason being that she’d had a  _ ridiculous _ argument about this damn TV with Fitz that morning. An argument that, in hindsight, she had been entirely in the wrong about. This was her way to apologise to him, to admit that she knew she’d over-reacted.

So she balanced herself precariously on a wooden chair, and set to work once again.

And it went  _ well _ . Or, at least, it did right up until the moment where the TV sagged precariously and fell down, causing her to lose her balance and crash down heavily to the floor.

 

.

 

Fitz opened the door to his shared apartment, running through exactly how he planned to apologise to Simmons for that nonsense earlier in the morning, and paused in the doorway.

He knew that Simmons had been planning to re-decorate today- that’s what had sparked their argument, so he hardly would have forgotten. He’d just expected her to have… well, finished. Or, at the very least, to either be still in the middle of it, or to have obviously put things on pause. Instead, it looked like she’d just bailed half way through.

It was very unlike her.

He stepped further into the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Jemma?” He called out hesitantly.

There was silence for a few moments, then a crash and a curse. Finally, Simmons herself appeared from another room, clearly favouring one leg over the over and wearing a novelty monkey hat that he’d bought her one time as a joke.

“Oh, hello, Fitz.” She spoke with that tone she used when she was trying to appear inconspicuous.

“Um,” Fitz looked around the room, then back at her, frowning heavily, “Is everything alright?”

“Why, yes. Everything is perfectly fine. Chipper, really. Why ever do you ask?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “Um. Well. You’re wearing, uh, that.”

She blinked up at him, as if processing what he’d said, then gave an over-exaggerated laugh, “Oh? This? I always wear this hat when I’m relaxing indoors, after a long day working at the office. Lab. Lab-office, where we work.”

“...Okay. Then, what about this?” He gestured to the mess about the room, and the paint stains across the floor. Simmons smile faltered slightly, which he pretended not to notice, “There’s, uh, I knew you were painting today, but it’s all over the floor? And are those broken shards of glass over there?”

“I, I’m afraid I have no idea what you are talking about!”

“Jemma.”

“.......Daisy must have come over while I was, busy, in the other room. You know how messy she can be!”

“ _ Jemma _ .”

They stared at each other.

And stared.

And stared.

And stared.

Until-

“Ugh,  _ fine _ .”

Simmons pulled the monkey hat from her head, letting her hair fall down.

Fitz continued to stare, his mouth dropping open.

He stayed silent for a few more moments, before the corners of his lips tugged into a smile and he couldn’t help himself but start laughing.

“Hey! It’s really not funny!” Simmons exclaimed, carefully crossing over the room until she was in front of him, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

“I’m sorry,” He sounded sincerely apologetic, though he still couldn’t quite manage to wipe that smile off of his face. “What  _ happened _ ?”

Simmons looked away, and fiddled with her hair. Her hair that was now stained very white. “I fell.”

“What? Then you just got up and carried on painting?”

“No, it was after I was finished with  _ that _ ,” She sighed, “I was trying to set up the TV. It was my own fault for not clearing away the paint first.”

He paused, “Wai- uh- what? The TV?”

“ _ Yes _ . I was over-reacting earlier. I wanted to surprise you to apologise properly.”

Fitz filed that away, turning his attention back to her very paint-stained hair, “Haven’t you tried to wash it out?”

“ _ Of course _ I have,” Simmons somehow managed to make him seem like the idiot, despite the fact that she was the one with a head of blue hair. “It won’t come out.”

“Why don’t you let me help?”

Simmons scowled. “Only if you stop grinning like that.”

Fitz worked very hard at schooling his expression into something resembling ‘neutral’. “Is this better?”

“It’ll do.” Simmons rolled her eyes and turned to walk towards the bathroom, before pausing to quickly add: “And don’t you go telling  _ anyone _ about this.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”


	4. guilt [post-maveth]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have a lot that I'd like to write RE: Simmons & guilt, but here we are. I'll probably expand on all of this later, but hey, this works for a midnight drabble

So much had happened over the past six months, yet as Simmons lay at the bottom of a pit, in Fitz’s arms, she found herself unable to think of it. Instead, all she could do was fixate on the strange feeling brewing in her chest. She tried to think of a word to describe it- serene, perhaps?

No, that didn’t quite feel right. There was a more fitting word, she was sure. If only she could think of it.

 

.

 

The medical checks went by in a blur. She barely processed what was happening around her. As much as she tried to find a way to ground herself in reality- to make that feeling in her chest fade away- nothing really worked. Surely, this must be the effect of suddenly returning to Earth after so long. Her body just needed time to adjust.

She could feel Fitz’s hand in her own throughout it all. She was unsure of who had initiated, or for whose sake it was.

 

.

 

Somewhere during the flight back, she must have fallen asleep. She couldn’t recall when she had dropped off, but as she suddenly found herself waking it was clear that she had.

Realising that she was  _ here _ , not  _ there _ was strange. It felt like a dream. She came to realise that she hadn’t truly believed that she would get back home. This was certainly reality, however, if the empty space beside her was anything to go by. Why would she create a fabrication where this was the end?

She left her bed and approached Fitz. He couldn’t be comfortable, sleeping there. It seemed she hadn’t been the only exhausted one. The thought of him searching for her over the past six months made that sensation grow in her chest, and she settled herself down, resting her head onto his leg and holding on, letting herself fall back asleep before it could make her drown.

 

.

 

The Playground was a lot.

Bright lights, loud noises, people bustling around every which way.

It was nothing like that place. That place with next to no sun, where the only noise was the wind, where the only other person was-

...It was nothing like that place.

So she stayed in her room. It was best to adjust slowly, she reasoned. There was no point in overwhelming herself. If she had a meltdown she would just burden everyone else, and she couldn’t have that.

 

.

 

Fitz didn’t want to leave her side. She was supposed to think it was sweet, but it just made that horrible feeling in her chest grow.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand his unease. She could. She remembered with perfect clarity what it was like during those nine days of hell, and then all of the days and weeks after. She knew what it was like to want to hold everything precious to you tightly, to shield it from all outside harm.

But the more he tried, the more safe he tried to make her feel, the more that feeling rattled beneath her skin.

 

.

 

She ended up telling Dr Garner about the feeling.

She hadn’t meant to. She had fully intended to keep everything locked up inside, as was the most logical way to move on, but the words had started and she found herself unable to stop them.

When he easily found the word she’d been looking for all of this time, she scoffed quietly and told him he was absolutely wrong.

 

.

 

“Do you ever look back?” Simmons asked out of the blue one night.

Fitz looked over blearily. “What are you thinking about?”

“...” She didn’t particularly want to answer, but it had been years, and that spark of an emotion in her chest, while still present, had shrunk down enough for her to be able to push past. “Maveth.”

Fitz blinked, a barely noticeable frown on his face. If she hadn’t had his attention before, Simmons knew that she did now.

“Sometimes.”

“...I keep thinking about when I returned. Everything felt so familiar, but foreign. It was the most bizarre thing I had ever experienced.” She paused. “But… that’s not exactly what I was thinking about tonight.”

“Then what…?”

“Will.” She said honestly, “I couldn’t forgive myself for what happened to him for so long. I felt so… guilty. Every time anyone offered me any kind of support, all I could think was how I didn’t deserve it.”

Fitz shifted, pulling her a fraction closer. “And now?”

“Now… I think he’d be horrified if he knew how I’d felt. He’d tell me that it was his choice.” She sighed. “...I wish you could have met.”

“...Me too.”


	5. 6x05 spec

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just got real emo and wanted to write something based off of that. there was supposed to be significantly more hugging in this but that didnt happen, so i may write something else with the necessary amounts of hugging bc i think thats what we as a fanbase need

The past few hours had been absolute hell- even ignoring the way her body ached with every movement as the hallucinogenic effects of the alien drugs she’d accidentally ingested wore off. If it had just been that she could have coped with little distress, but the universe had never been awfully keen on making things easy for her.

Instead, her worst nightmare had been brought to life as she was forced to watch Fitz being hurt, utterly unable to do anything to make it stop.

She was sure that she’d never felt rage to that extent before in her life.

Now, however, it was over. The danger was gone, and all that was left was to reach him. She wasn’t so naive as to think that would really be the end of things- she’d been in his position before. She knew that it wouldn’t be as simple as that, but at least from here on she would be by his side.

In the past, they’d promised not to leave one another’s sides. Simmons quietly renewed that promise. Whatever they faced in the future would be faced together. Nothing like this would happen again.

She didn’t hesitate before the door to his cell, opening it and rushing inside.

Fitz was slumped on the ground. Conscious and alive, but his brow was creased in pain, and in a moment Simmons was by his side.

“Jemma,” Fitz breathed, shifting himself so that he could see her better and wincing as even just that slight movement caused him harm. “You need to go. Before they- before their reinforcements get here-”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Simmons interrupted, her voice shaking, “We’re both leaving. Can you walk?”

Fitz shook his head. “I’ll just slow you down. It’s okay. If you’re safe, I’ll be okay.”

“Can you stop being a self-sacrificing idiot for  _ two seconds _ ?” She didn’t mean to snap, but the words left her before she was given the chance to question them.

“I can’t move, Jemma, and you can’t carry me out of here,” Fitz spoke with a comforting tone, trying to assure her that this was, somehow, fine.

Simmons shook her head, tears dropping onto her cheeks. “I will drag you out of this room if I have to, Fitz. I-” She paused and exhaled. “I’m not brave enough to live in a world without you in it.”

Fitz shut his eyes to hold back his own tears, the gravity of the situation hitting him.

“So,” Simmons continued, “You can either help me, and increase the odds of us getting out of here safely, or you can keep trying to argue with me and we’ll just both end up trapped here. Either way, I do not intend to leave your side.”

Simmons helped Fitz to stand, taking most of his weight so as to not cause him excess pain, and slowly the pair began the trek to safety.


End file.
